Michel v. Hartford, 226 Conn. App. 98 (2024)

Citation: Michel v. Hartford, 226 Conn. App. 98 (2024)
Parent Document: Michel v. Hartford, 226 Conn. App. 98 (2024)
Jurisdiction: Connecticut (state)
Effective Date: 2024-06-11
Original Source: https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/10131855/michel-v-hartford/ ↗
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0 Conn. App. 1                                    ,0                              3
                                      Michel v. Hartford
       1. The plaintiff could not prevail on his claim that the trial court improperly
            granted the defendant’s motion to strike with regard to his claim under
            § 1983; the plaintiff failed to sufficiently plead facts that, if proven, would
            establish retaliation pursuant to an official policy, practice or custom,
            such that the defendant, as a municipality, could be held liable pursuant
            to § 1983 for the actions of its employees, as the plaintiff acknowledged
            that the conduct at issue did not involve a formal or official policy, he
            failed to allege any facts to demonstrate that the officers who engaged
            in the alleged retaliatory conduct were responsible for establishing final
            policy with respect to the subject matter in question, in order to be
            characterized as municipal policymakers, the pattern of misconduct
            alleged by the plaintiff was directed only at the plaintiff himself, and
            the plaintiff did not allege other constitutional violations, or that the
            officers’ conduct was directed at anyone else, in order to establish that
            the defendant had a custom or practice of infringing on constitu-
            tional rights.
       2. The trial court improperly granted the defendant’s motion to strike the
            counts of the operative complaint asserting claims of retaliation in viola-
            tion of § 31-51q:
           a. The defendant’s argument that the operative complaint was devoid
           of any allegations as to what the plaintiff ‘‘actually said’’ in his deposition
           testimony and, therefore, that the allegations were insufficient to estab-
           lish that his speech was on a matter of public concern was unavailing:
           the allegations set forth in the operative complaint, when construed
           in the manner most favorable to sustaining its legal sufficiency, were
           sufficient to demonstrate that the plaintiff was not making a statement
           pursuant to his official duties and, although testifying in criminal proceed-
           ings and certain civil proceedings may have been a part of the tasks that
           the plaintiff was paid to perform, there were no factual allegations to
           indicate that providing deposition testimony in the context of a fellow
           employee’s discrimination proceeding was part of what the plaintiff, as
           a police officer, was employed to do; moreover, the allegations set forth
           in the operative complaint were sufficient to establish that the plaintiff’s
           speech was on the topic of racial discrimination against a fellow
           employee, which is a matter of public concern, and the allegations in
           the operative complaint, taken together, necessarily implied that the
           plaintiff’s deposition testimony supported C’s discrimination claim; fur-
           thermore, although the plaintiff failed to include allegations concerning
           the precise content of his testimony, it could reasonably be inferred
           from the allegations set forth in the operative complaint that the plaintiff
           in the present case was speaking out against discrimination in his testi-
           mony or that his testimony regarded the existence of discrimination in
           the workplace and, accordingly, the trial court improperly determined
           that the plaintiff failed to sufficiently allege that his speech addressed
           a matter of public concern.
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